M-m-m-my Verona

9.3

It was pouring rain when we left Besozzola and continued to pour all the way to Verona. Fortunately it was all freeway and not busy, so a relatively easy drive. I hope it's clear on the way home, as I really want a good view of the Po River (very important in Roman geography). Our room is very nice, with a street view (ie, as much of a view as anyone in the hotel is getting!), and has a jacuzzi tub, which we intend to make good use of! (I REALLY miss having a bathtub sometimes.)

Today we did a lot more than I had really planned to, partly because the town is smaller than I anticipated and partly because the weather was surprisingly good. The forecast had said overcast in the morning, followed by rain much of the day, but we lucked out: not only was it warm enough to leave coats in the hotel, but the rain held off until nearly 6.

My Rick Steve's guide  said to be sure to get a Verona Ticket that admits you to 15 of the most popular museums and sights in town for 15E, and good for two days. This was the best advice we could have had -- just on the things we saw today I would have spent 20.50E, and we're going to 3 more places on the list tomorrow. (Well, I could have had -- Ro being under 12 years old gets in free everywhere anyway). We got out about 10 and walked from our hotel up to the old Roman toll gate and then to the ancient Arena, where they were building the stage for the opera season, which opens the first of May. From there we went up the main shopping street to Juliet's house, which was a fairly ordinary 15^th C house that certainly belonged to a family with a name very like Capulet – their coat of arms, which appears various places on the walls in the house, has a bunch of hats on it. They apparently married well, as there are also coats of arms on the walls with ladders on them – the della Scala (“of the ladder”) family ruled Verona for a long time. As a literary monument and Shakespearean “Juliet's house” it’s not really terribly interesting, but it's also a modern art display space, and Aurora really liked the paintings on exhibit. I'm afraid I confused the guards by asking which bits were original to the house and which were added to be more "Julietty." They didn’t really know.

We grabbed a little lunch and then continued on to the Church of St Anastasia, which was amazingly beautiful. Blue, white, and pink marble on the facade, incredible frescoes inside, and a collection of artwork from the 13^th -19^th centuries that was really eye-popping -- a significant art gallery completely apart from its function as a church! Then we walked to the Stone Bridge, which until WWII was almost entirely the original Roman construction (repaired extensively in the Renaissance but not actually rebuilt). The Germans blew it up in WWII, but the Veronese rescued as much of the stone from the river as they could and rebuilt it on the same plan, so it's sorta kinda an ancient Roman bridge. It leads to the Roman theater just over the river.

Across the bridge was the Roman theatre, which was just beautiful and had a really good exhibit of various Roman bits and pieces that had been excavated from the site (including a lovely lead aqueduct pipe – the people behind us did NOT understand why I was oohing and aahing over a squushed pipe). The very large and impressive theater complex used to have the theatre, a meeting hall, and a temple to Jupiter on it. After the fall of Rome later the barbarian rulers used the building for various things, but it was then deserted and gradually was built over until a Dominican got hold of the land in the 15^th C and built a monastery there over the whole thing. The monastery was sold in the 1830 to someone who was pretty sure that there were good Roman antiquities underneath, and who proceeded to excavate big chunks of it on his own dime. Most of the leftover monastery is now museum and a garden full of funerary monuments and other inscriptions. A lot of bits of decoration and statuary from the complex has been found, but only the theater itself and the front bit of the enormous portico and temple are still visible (a lot of buildings up the hill would have to come down to find anything else).

At this point it was nearly 4 and we were exhausted, so we grabbed a cab back and took our baths before going to get some dinner. (We are getting every second out of the jacuzzi tub!) By the time we were ready for dinner it was pouring rain again, but the place we wanted to go is barely a block away, and the hotel has loaner umbrellas, so not a problem.

Supposed to be sunny and even warmer tomorrow, so we're hopeful of another very good day. We're definitely enjoying Verona! And if it's nice on Monday, we'll go to Catullus' house on the way home, which is about 10 miles out of our way and said to be very worth seeing.

10.3

Well, it seems we overdid a little on Saturday. Though today was sunny and nice, we were just exhausted and only ended up going to see the main Roman street of ancient Verona and then the castle. The original builder of the castle, of the della Scala family, was so vicious a fighter that he was known as "can rabbioso," the rabid dog. He liked the name so much that he named his first son Cangrande, "big dog", and a later son Mastino, "Mastiff."  Mastino then named his sons Cangrande and Cansignorio, "Lord Dog." (Sounds like a bad dyslexia joke.) Astonishingly, their coat of arms is two dogs apparently attempting to climb a ladder (scala). The castle is mostly an art museum - the family (also known as the Scaligeri) were the patrons of people like Dante, Petrarch and Giotto, and amassed or commissioned a LOT of artwork in the 13^th and 14^th centuries. One of the most interesting was a picture of a boy of about 6 or 7 with a stick figure drawing in his hand. The child is smiling widely, which is really weird for 14^th C portraiture, and frankly a little unnerving!

The castle and its attendant bridge were quite impressive, and we climbed around on it a lot. However, we tired quickly and decided to go back to the hotel. Naturally this meant that we promptly got lost in an area where there were no cabs, so we had to figure out how to walk back, which ended up taking an hour. The jacuzzi tub was a VERY happy thing to have when we got back.

We found a sushi bar near the hotel on our walk back and decided to indulge. It was pretty good (well, divine, after a year without, though possibly not as good as I thought after such long deprivation). I'm fairly certain that the entire Japanese population of Italy worked there. Unfortunately Aurora seems to have overindulged and ended up throwing a lot of it back up over night, poor kid. But once it was out of her system she slept fine and seems to have suffered no additional ill effects. I was fine.

11.3

Today we met Farrukh at the train station. He brought us a kilo of fudge from a sweet shop in Oxford that is said to be famous for its fudge. (It was AWFULLY good.) We took him up to our favorite place in Verona, the Roman theater. It's closed on Monday mornings, but there is a stairway that goes up around the property to the top of the hill, which was a really spectacular climb and view. By the time we got to the top and took some pictures and came back down again it was lunch time. The concierge at our hotel recommended a little place near the theater called The Friar's Alcove, so we went there. Farrukh and I split their signature dish, a variety of beef tartare appetizers, then had tagliatelle with truffle sauce. REALLY yummy (though we did wimp out on the TRUE Veronese version, which is horse, not beef). Aurora as usual had spaghetti bolognese. The waiter took a very cute picture of the three of us. If we do manage to get back to Verona with Elise, I will order the horse.

We had hoped to take in Catullus' Villa outside Verona today, but of course, it's closed Mondays. We'll get up there again to see it -- it's supposed to be the best set of Roman ruins in the north of Italy. Might be better to go in the early summer anyway -- it's on Lake Garda, and we could go swimming after touring.

We dropped Farrukh at the airport and were home before 5pm. It was lovely and warm down in Verona, even though it's farther north than we are, but even up here it was 50F and the snow is nearly all gone.

Easter is coming up fast and I am working on the plan for that week. Definitely going somewhere.  As much snow as we’ve had lately, I’m thinking south. Should probably hit Magna Graecia, since I’m not going to Greece any time soon.